Carew was appointed
President of Munster on 27 January 1600, at the height of the
Nine Years War and landed with
Lord Mountjoy at
Howth Head a month later. He enjoyed wide powers, including the imposition of
martial law, and excelled in the politics of
divide and rule. He interviewed the successor to the
Earl of Clancarty,
Florence MacCarthy, in the spring of that year, after an unjust attack by presidency forces on the
MacCarthy territories prior to his arrival. He was present as a guest when the
Earl of Ormond was seized by the
O'Mores at a parley in the same year, and managed to escape with the
Earl of Thomond through a hail of daggers. At about this time he put down the supporters of the
Súgán Earl of Desmond, and in October the lawful Desmond heir,
James FitzGerald, was restored to the title in a limited degree. In August, Carew had accepted a reinforcement of 3,000 troops from England, but in the following May was dismayed when
Mountjoy took 1,000 from him to supplement the crown army in its northern campaign, at a time when the threat of a Spanish landing in the south was at its highest. Although he had been distrusted by Essex, owing to his sympathy with the
Cecilsin 1598 Essex had encouraged his despatch to Ireland, in order to remove his influence from courtCarew's support was welcomed by Mountjoy (who had overtaken his own master, Essex). Cecil did seek his recall from the Irish service, as much for his own political ends, as out of friendship, and tried to manipulate Mountjoy into recommending this. But Carew remained on and, although he failed to intercept
Hugh Roe O'Donnell on the rebel's remarkable march southward to relieve the Spanish forces which
had made landfall at
Kinsale in the winter of 1601, he did great service before and after the
Battle of Kinsale, as he raided castles in the surrounding region in order to remove the advantage the Spanish had expected upon their landing. In the course of this campaign, his violence devastated the rebels and the peasantry, and his conduct of the
siege of Dunboy castle, the last major engagement in Munster during the war, was ruthless. The Dursey massacre, also called the Dursey Island massacre, took place in June 1602 during the Nine Years' War on Dursey Island off the Beara Peninsula in southern Ireland. According to Philip O'Sullivan Beare, a group of around three hundred Gaelic Irish, including men, women and child civilians, were killed by English soldiers under George Carew. Many were killed during the attack, but those that surrendered were bound and thrown from the cliffs. Carew proved unpopular with elements of the Old English élite in Ireland, particularly over his strong opposition to the privileges enjoyed by the municipal corporations under
royal charter. On the death of
Elizabeth I, he was confronted unexpectedly with serious civil disorder, when several towns under his jurisdiction refused to proclaim the new
King James I. The motives for these disturbances are obscure, but probably combined a desire for greater religious toleration with a demand for greater recognition of their civic independence. The trouble was especially severe in
Cork, where serious rioting broke out. Carew was forced to send troops to restore order, and later tried, without success, to have the Cork city fathers tried for
treason. His severe attitude is explained by his personal interest in the matter since Lady Carew's life was said to have been threatened during the riots, and she had been forced to take refuge in
Shandon Castle. ==Later career==